See that? That right there? That's the $10.55 – about US$9.95 – that EA Games won't take.

Because, see, I was totally hyped up on account of the full version of the Spore Creature Creator becoming available for download today. So I grabbed my money (well, my credit card) and raced to their website to place my order.

Except, guess what? They apparently require a postal address from the US or Canada.

Um. What?

Am I mistaken? I thought this was 2008, not 1998. What the fuck kind of e-fucking-commerce website limits themselves to that kind of regional distribution? So I emailed their support and was told that EA.com do [sic] not possess the ability to ship orders outside of North America, Canada and Mexico due to trade restrictions.

Yeah. Right.

Of course, they have an Australian website… you just can't buy anything from it. Because when it comes to video games Australia is apparently a fucking third world country.

And the thing is, the other day I told myself that – from now on – I would refuse to pay money for anything that didn't have a simultaneous Australian release unless there was a damn good reason.

There is not a damn good reason why I can't pay someone ten dollars to download a file.

So, sorry, Maxis. I love you beyond reason – almost as much as Blizzard, even – but you're not getting my money for your game. In fact, I'm off to find a torrent of it right now.

If you ever want to join the rest of us in the 21st century, I've got $10 here with your name on it.

Edit

Wow, okay. I can't even buy it off partner sites like Direct2Drive. So. Much. Fail.

Edit x2

Oh. My. God. Apparently the UK D2D site didn't have region locking on the download at first. That got "fixed". I totally don't get it; why the hell are EA working so hard to lock out a segment of their market?

Mirrored from v-s.net. Comments are preferred on the original.